Breathing Life into Road Safety

BERNHARD TJATJARANAMIBIA HAS become the first country to ratify the African Road Safety Charter, according to nascent media reports.

Road safety in Africa is said to be a crisis, according to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The WHO have reported that Africa experiences the highest per capita rate of road fatalities in the world. Namibia is justified to be the first to ratify the African Road Safety Charter.

In 2005, Namibia topped the list as the highest in the world in terms of the number of road deaths per 100 000 residents. Michigan University researchers in 2014 indicated that 53% of Namibia’s residents were more likely to die in a vehicle collision than cancer.

Although that seems a long while ago, road carnage is still a painful reality which we have endured since then. Motor-Vehicle Accident (MVA) statistics depict that there were 702 road fatalities in 2015, 734 in 2016, 774 in 2017 and 313 in 2018.

The ratification of the African Road Safety Charter can be regarded as resuscitating road safety initiatives in Namibia, in addition to the current legislation on that front. This development can be welcomed. The African Road Safety Charter was adopted on 31 January 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The African Road Safety Charter is primarily based on two objectives. The first one is to serve as a policy framework for road safety improvement in Africa. The other is to serve as an advocacy tool and instrument for road safety improvement on the continent, aimed at facilitating the creation of an enabling environment to drastically reduce road traffic crashes.

The African Road Safety Charter requires of state parties to ensure that the needs of vulnerable road users are adequately taken into consideration in the planning, design and provision of road infrastructure, to adopt and enforce minimum standards of vehicles to ensure roadworthiness, to regulate age limits of imported vehicles, and to strengthen the rules and regulations for the training of drivers, the introduction of road safety in school curricula, and to enforce safety legislation, particularly those related to speed control, control of driving whilst under the influence of alcohol and drugs, wearing of seatbelts, use of helmets and enhancing visibility, and the use of mobile telephones while driving.

To the other end of the spectrum, the African Road Safety Charter requires state parties to adopt post-crash care. This entails the strengthening of pre-hospital and post-crash care services in order to provide timely and appropriate care to injured patients to minimise the effects and long-term disability, and to establish emergency medical services’ (EMS) coordinating centres.

A mere adoption of the African Road Safety Charter will have little impact if we cannot re-think road safety. The ratification, in my view, should necessitate comparing our current legislative landscape page by page with the African Road Safety Charter.

Legislation relevant to road safety such as the National Road Safety Act 9 of 1972, Road Transportation Act 74 of 1977, Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, Police Act 19 of 1990, Cross-border Road Transportation Act 18 of 1996, Road Traffic and Transport Act 22 of 1999, Local Authorities Fire Brigade Services Act 5 of 2006, and the MVA Fund Act 10 of 2007, must be reviewed, and the gaps in such legislation and their regulations be evaluated.

The above-mentioned legislation must be revised, and be based on recent trends in injuries and fatalities in Namibia. The legislation must be harmonised where possible, and the comprehensiveness of such legislation relating to risk factors identified by the African Road Safety Charter, namely speeding, drink and driving, seatbelts, and child restraints must be revisited and considered afresh.

Proper research on the risk factors by the National Commission on Research, Science and Technology (NCRST) should be considered.

The Education Act 16 of 2001, which empowers the minister of education to determine the curricula after consultation with the advisory council, must be reconciled with legislation on road safety to allow, as the African Road Safety Charter requires, for road safety to be adopted in school curricula.

Moreover, improvements will be required relating to the comprehensiveness of legislation, such as the National Road Safety Act 9 of 2012 and the MVA Fund Act 10 of 2007 with regards to post-crash care. In the same way, Namibia will have to reconsider and ensure the appropriate provision for enforcement and appropriate penalties for drink and driving, speeding, seatbelts, and the use of mobile phones, whilst driving offences should be catalogued in the Road Traffic and Transport Act 22 of 1999 and regulations made thereunder.

Lastly, it might require the National Road Safety Council to redesign and convey more effective messages on road safety than it has done before. In addition, laudable advocacy and objectives with regards to road safety must be ventilated upon.

As a consequence, concerted efforts on the active promotion of road safety must be revised and considered and implemented throughout the year, not only during peak holidays such as the Easter break, Christmas and New Year. All in all, the adoption of the African Road Safety Charter is a significant gesture which might help turn a new leaf on road safety.

* Bernhard Tjatjara teaches commercial law and company law at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. He writes in his personal capacity.